Dreamkiller

The Obvious Thing to say is that the game is more of a nightmare than a dream and, yes, it'd be completely accurate to say so. The only positive thing I can find to say about Dreamkiller is that it's better than Painkiller: Resurrection. But as you can see by the score we gave that one, it's not exactly praise that we're showering on Dreamkiller. Cold piss, maybe.

This shooter is all about a tattooed lady who can enter your mind and conquer your greatest fears for you, be they spiders or whatever. The first level is all about spiders and sets the scene perfectly. Drab scenery, painful frame rates if you try to put the texture quality up to High on less-than-wonderful machines, plus repetitive action that has to be experienced to be believed. Actually, it's best you don't ever experience it, honest. It's really not fun at all.

The idea is a decent one and offers a lot of scope for interesting scenarios and levels, which is the most saddening thing about the Dreamkiller.

There's been some attempt to create something special here, but it's just such a chore to grind through the game, you'll never see whether the latter levels offer wondrous sights. They'd probably all look ghastly anyway, due to the lack of detail in the environments and textures. But it doesn't matter how much thought has been put into level design when the gameplay itself is so monotonous.

Just Bad

For instance, there's one bit on the second level, where you find yourself in a car park. Naturally, enemies spawn everywhere and you back off and let them rush headlong at you. I ended up just running around in a big circle for ages while the baddies just spawned inexorably. Then some big spiders appeared. I killed them and then I moved to the next room, where another load of creatures spawned and the cycle was effectively repeated.

If that sounds like your idea of fun and you like the fact you can only carry one weapon at a time, barring your rubbish flamethrower-hands ability, then Dreamkiller is just the ticket. For people who value things like excitement, variety, visuals, tension and just plain old good quality gaming, this would be about as much fun as stuffing a funnel into your rectum and pouring boiling hot tar into it. In fact, that actually sounds like it could be more fun than playing this game.